Thursday, July 19, 2012

What I did at Comic-Con

Watched the panel discussions of a number of things I'm interested in: Doctor Who, Dexter, True Blood, The Guild (or Geek & Sundry), the TV Guide panel featuring at least two actors I wanted to see as well as half a dozen more I don't care about, the Blizzard panel hyping the game company's upcoming ancillary products, a panel discussion of problems faced by female creators in comics, and at least one panel discussion by fantasy novelists, and maybe more I can't remember at the moment.

Watched some panel discussions I don't really care about - Supernatural, some Tron cartoon, several others - because they were before ones that I did. Call it like the opening act of a band or call it bad organization policy, but organizers didn't clear rooms when one panel ended and the next began, so we eventually learned that if we wanted to see something at 12:30 and it was likely to be at all popular, we should get there at 11:30. Or 10:30. Or 4:15.

Bought five back issues of comics from the 1990s, one graphic novel signed by the artist, one webcomic collection signed by the artist, one spinoff toy from a webcomic, some Magic cards, a t-shirt, and probably more that doesn't come to mind right now. T. bought quite a bit too, both for herself and me.

Picked up freebies including t-shirts, two different funny hats, comics, posters, and more Magic cards. Again, T. probably got even more than me, mostly novels.

Took lots of pictures of cosplayers. There were quite a few clever and fun and creative and, sure, racy costumes there.

Had dinner with two different friends of T. who live in the area and their families. They were nice.

What I didn't do at Comic-Con

Didn't succeed at getting into the Firefly events. And we tried. We were in line for it four hours early, that just wasn't early enough. I gather it's always popular at Comic-Con and this was the 10-year anniversary. So that sucked. T. was literally crying about it.

Didn't even try to go to the panels about Iron Man 3, other upcoming Marvel movies, The Hobbit, Magic: the Gathering, or several other relatively big-ticket events. I might have liked to, but either they conflicted with someone I was even more interested in, or I just needed to rest after everything else we did. In hindsight there's some stuff I wish I'd seen, but there was just a ton to see and do. Oh well.

Didn't cosplay. Sorry, maybe next year.

Didn't do anything else in San Diego. I gather the zoo is nice, and the beach, and more, but all we did outside SDCC was one evening in the pool hot tub and the aforementioned dinners with friends.

Other notes

It was fun, but tiring. I want to go next year if we can, but that's a longshot.